The Marine Museum at Fall River is a cultural gem and contains a wealth of Fall River Maritime History especially Steam Ship and Titanic memorabilia. Discover the art, books, models and many treasures the Marine Museum holds. This is a must see
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The Marine Museum at Fall River is a cultural gem and contains a wealth of Fall River Maritime History especially Steam Ship and Titanic memorabilia. Discover the art, books, models and many treasures the Marine Museum holds. This is a must see resource for landlubbers and mariners alike.

Carol Gafford is a public librarian, family historian, amateur archivist and book savior. She is currently the youth services/outreach librarian at the Swansea Public Library and volunteers for several museum and historical societies including the Marine Museum at Fall River, the Swansea Historical Society and the Bristol Historical and Preservation society. She is the editor of Past Times, the Massachusetts Society of Genealogists and is always looking for a new project to take on.

Originally billed as an "acoustic tour," Alejandro Escovedo's Easter evening visit to Fall River's Narrows Center for the Arts was more his usual exhilirating rock 'n' roll show--with a brief acoustic interlude. But by the time the Austin, Texas songwriter and his Sensitive Boys cranked out 17 songs in a vibrant performance just short of two hours long, culminating in a blistering, feedback-soaked guitar-inferno cover of Neil Young's "Like A Hurricane," none of the 240 fans present were anything but elated.

Escovedo is touring around New England for the next week or so, including several shows in Maine. He also performs at the Tupelo Music Hall in Londonderry, New Hampshire on April 6, and at the Iron Horse in Northampton on April 9.

Escovedo, 62, had a hot young guitar talent on board this time, in Texan Ricky Ray Jackson, who also spent about a third of the concert playing pedal steel, along with the veteran rhythm section of bassist Bob Daniel and drummer Chris Searles. Of course, Escovedo is a killer guitarist himself, but Jackson added a new level of fire, making for some terrific tradeoffs between the two. And, with Jackson taking most of the solos, Escovedo could concentrate on rhythm guitar, where he is a certified master, and on his vocals, which were topnotch all night.

The setlist included about half of Escovedo's latest album, last year's "Big Station," along with some chestnuts from his vast catalog, and some cool covers. Early on, Escovedo told the story of how his family emigrated from Mexico to Texas in stages, so that he was initially left with grandparents before eventually joining his parents. He's portrayed that time in "By the Hand of the Father," and performed the song "Wave" from that album, noting that his folks had gone to California to visit relatives, and ended up buying property and never going back to Texas. That sort of rootlessness suffused "Wave," which was given a surreal tone by Jackson's pedal steel tones, and with its near-ten-minutes length, resembled the kind of thoughtful musical journey of the West we might expect from Aaron Copland.

"San Antonio Rain" brought matters back to a more classic rock area, with as perfect a wistful ballad as any Texan has probably ever penned--and the ironic upshoot is that it depicts the singer giving up on finding the old city he remembered. That's the beauty of Escovedo songs, that there are so many levels and unexpected layers of meanings. "Bottom of the World" is another ode to Texas, a more affectionate look at its gritty side, delivered with rocking abandon on Sunday night.

Escovedo reached way back in his songbook for "Pissed Off 2 A.M.," which he assured the audience was not autobiographical, but it was in fact a fairly poignant ballad about hard lives and missed chances.

The night's acoustic segment was brief but effective, as Escovedo and Jackson donned acoustic guitars, while the rhythm section took up tambourines, and they all strolled out into the crowd, standing among the tables and seats and singing a song at each end of the seating area. Escovedo noted how thrilled he was that country star Bobby Bare Sr. covered his "I Was Drunk," and once again, the stark title belied a tender ballad of regret. His second acoustic number came from 2010's "Street Songs of Love" album, and Escovedo's vocal on "Down in the Bowery" was absolutely spine-tingling--even with no microphones.

"You never know what might come out of my mouth," Escovedo joked after that, returning to the stage. "I might say something silly like 'let's do an acoustic tour.' That's about as acoustic as we get, and I hope you don't mind." Since the next song was the anthemic "Can't Make Me Run," with both guitarists shredding over the rumbling rhythm, nobody minded in the least. Escovedo took to the secondary--taxi-dispatcher-style--microphone for the song's denouement, the whisperered refrain "don't give up on love.." and with very little urging he soon had a chorus of 250 voices behind him.

"Arizona," from Escovedo's excellent 2006 album "The Boxing Mirror" was another mid-set treat, a heavy duty rock anthem that might remind some of Bruce Springsteen-with-Southwestern accents. (In recent years, Springsteen's manager Jon Landau has taken on management of Escovedo, and the two rockers have often appeared together.)

"Castanets" is the Escovedo tune that was famously found on the IPod of President George W. Bush, and Sunday's version was a furiously rocking shuffle that closed the regular set. Escovedo would end up doing six encore songs, beginning with the song he used to title a collection of his live recordings in 1996, "More Miles Than Money." Escovedo sang it with just the pedal steel and the rhythm section, investing that paean to musicians--and everyone else who does what they love despite it not being very profitable--with an almost hymnal quality of grace.

"Sabor A Mi," was a curveball, as it is on last year's CD, and the only song sung in Spanish. Escovedo explained it was a 1951 huge hit in Mexico, and later covered by Eydie Gorme among others, and it is a sweetly melodic ballad. The pounding "Tender Heart" led into the pulverizing rocker "Man of the World," but Escovedo and Jackson were just getting warmed up.

A slow and soulful take on Mott the Hoople's "All the Young Dudes" was certainly a surprise, until you remembered that Ian Hunter and Escovedo have sung and recorded together. Once again, Escovedo encouraged a massive singalong chorus, which filled the room with smiling faces.

The first clue to the special finale came with Escovedo provoking feedback from his guitar and playing a bit of melody through it, and Jackson soon joined in, before the whole band kicked off into as torrid a rendition of "Like a Hurricane" as Neil Young's tune ever received. The song must've spanned ten or twelve gloriously loud and rocking minutes, with a lengthy fuzz-toned Jackson solo followed by an incendiary Escovedo solo that mixed in bent notes, wah-wah pedal, and more of that strangely melodic feedback. Escovedo would also punctuate the solos with spurts of his muscular rhythm guitar chordings, for an all-enveloping wall of six-string pyrotechnics. It's a rare night when rock 'n' roll is this exciting.

We thought Escovedo's concert at the Brighton Music Hall last spring was the best 2012 rock concert we heard, and Sunday night's Narrows Center blast will no doubt rank among this year's best.